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Rembrandt’s two dozen copies of Mughal paintings that he created between the years 1654 and 1660, remains an obscure collection of drawings within the artist’s extensive body of work. In the scholarship, these drawings are usually framed as his interest in costumes and gestures. This interpretation, however, does not fully take into account Rembrandt’s sensitivity towards cultural and religious tolerance, as exhibited in all aspects of his artistic practice. Prior to his Mughal drawings, Rembrandt already exhibited a curiosity for foreign peoples and places. As a resident of Amsterdam, the global epicenter of Europe, he took advantage of his cosmopolitan atmosphere by actively collecting objects from Asia and the New World brought in by the Dutch East India Company. His art, moreover, did not remain impervious to this dynamic and diverse environment, as evinced by the numerous drawings Rembrandt made to document the different sights and peoples that he encountered in the city. His Mughal copies, moreover, do not resemble the sketches that scholars consider as exhibiting the artist’s curiosity for Oriental attire and distinct body language; instead, they closely parallel the kinds of drawings he made after works of art he found visually appealing. Rembrandt experimented with different kinds of lines and contours to imitate and adapt the Mughal style to diversify his artistic repertoire. His thoughtful engagement reveals that Rembrandt viewed Mughal art style as legitimate forms he could utilize to develop new compositions, or even to challenge and correct existing pictorial traditions. Rembrandt’s Mughal drawings, rather than being an obscure collection, demonstrate instead his unique ability to craft works of art to be reflective of his rich, diverse environment. This strong artistic desire for pictorial experimentation, in addition to his sensitivity for acute narrative interpretation, coalesces to form a more unified portrait of Rembrandt as an empathetic, albeit ambitious, artist. / text

Cet ouvrage a pour objet l’étude de différents peintres moghols ayant exercé leur activité au XVIII° siècle, c'est-à-dire entre la fin du règne d’Aurengzeb et le début de celui d’Akbar II. Il s’attache à établir, pour chaque peintre, des catalogues de l’œuvre peint, et, partant, à définir les caractéristiques de chacun, en analysant le style et l’approche iconographique des peintures. Jusqu’à présent, la méconnaissance globale des collections de peintures mogholes du XVIII° siècle a désigné cette période comme une phase de recul qualitatif des peintres et des peintures, ces dernières étant généralement considérées comme peu nombreuses, stylistiquement faibles et limitées à des sujets galants, courtois ou érotiques. C’est en analysant ces collections peu étudiées que nous avons tenté d’améliorer la connaissance de cette période, à travers la vie et l’œuvre des peintres moghols face aux bouleversements qui surviennent dans l’Inde du nord tout au long du XVIII° siècle. Ainsi, nous nous sommes attaché à montrer, qu’après une première phase où prévaut, chez les peintres, une forme de classicisme, les membres de l’académie impériale ont tenté de rénover l’esthétique moghole face à l’émergence d’ateliers régionaux concurrentiels. Nous avons ensuite suivi le parcours des peintres qui s’installèrent en Oudh, amenant, sans rupture, le mouvement appelé Company Paintings, tandis qu’à Delhi, les membres de l’académie impériale s’orientaient vers une forme de néoclassicisme pictural. Ce travail permettra de jeter un regard nouveau sur les peintres moghols au XVIII° siècle, en montrant l’évolution donnée à l’esthétique classique dans un contexte de régionalisation de la peinture. / This work is a study on Mughal painters who were active in the 18th century, between the end of Aurengzeb and the beginning of Akbar’s rein. The intention is to establish a catalogue of painted works for each painter, thereby defining the characteristics of each one through an analysis of the style and different iconographic approaches within the paintings. Until recently, the global lack of knowledge of Mughal eighteenth century painting collections defined this period as one of decline in the quality of painters and their works, the latter being generally considered to be small in number, stylistically weak and limited to gallant, courtly, and erotic subject matter.Through an analysis of these rarely studied collections that we have broached a renewal of our understanding of this period through the lives and works of these Mughal painters who were facing the political and economical disruptions that took place in the North of India throughout the whole of the eighteenth century. Therefore, our work has been focused on revealing that after an initial phase, when a form of classicism prevailed in the painters’ works, the members of the imperial academy aimed at renewing a Mughal aesthetic as the concurrent regional workshops emerged. We have then followed the direction of the painters who settling in Oudh, took with them, the movement known as Company Paintings, whereas in Delhi, the members of the imperial academy orientated themselves towards a neoclassical pictoralism. This work, by showing in particular the evolution of a classical aesthetic, will therefore allow us look anew at Mughal painters of the eighteenth century, within the context of the regionalisation of painting in India.